Leslie Wilcox Blogs

Plowing Thru Hawaiian Words Without a Clue

Our management team at PBS Hawaii made an easy call today. We decided to tell the producers of a national series that we won't air a particular episode unless they re-do their narration, to pronounce key Hawaiian words correctly.

The way the narrator pronounces most of the Hawaiian place-names bears little resemblance to what we should be hearing. In fact, I didn't recognize the name of a school as pronounced. When I saw the pictures, I knew the school immediately and realized just how far off the charts the narrator is.

 Our programming department, led by Linda Brock, and other staffers are not Hawaiian language experts. However, we agree there doesn't even seem to have been an effort to try to get it right. For example, Hualalai is pronounced (twice) as Hula Lolly.

This is a show that came to Hawaii and didn't do its cultural homework. As a result, the show suffers a loss of credibility.

Which is too bad, because I very much like the show's subject and its storytelling. And I appreciate the producers shooting on location on an island that is sometimes overlooked. So I won't mention the name of the show, which we have been anticipating broadcasting this fall on PBS Hawaii. 

It's the second time this year that PBS Hawaii has decided to hold the line, declining to air a program about Hawaii that mangles the language of our host culture.  After all, we want to uphold high standards--and English AND Hawaiian are the state's official languages.

 We're not perfect, either. But we believe it's important to  make one's best effort--to learn phonetic basics rather than plow through Hawaiian words without a clue.

  Local stations are the heart of the PBS system, and so is education. Let's hope this show decides to go back to the audio booth, to backtrack and re-track, and give all of the TV markets in which it airs the authenticity and quality that viewers deserve.

  Then, we can all sit back and enjoy the show.

Kilauea Volcano is no "soup kettle"

    Turns out that a 31-year-old newspaper correspondent who'd recently dubbed himself Mark Twain was one of the first guests at the Volcano House near Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii Island in 1866.

     Watching Ken Burns' national parks documentary on PBS Hawaii tonight (Tues., Sept. 29, 2009), I'm hearing for the first time a Twain quote after he watched Kilauea in magnificent molten action.  Twain wrote that compared to the Hawaiian volcano, Italy's Vesuvius was a mere "soup kettle."

    Twain's "glowing" reports from the volcano helped launch his writing career and are said to have had a role in the creation of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

     Here's one of Twain's accounts, published in the Sacramento Daily Union in November 1866. At first he's underwhelmed by Kilauea--but not for long!

     http://www.twainquotes.com/18661116u.html   

Joe Who? Father Damien's Original Name

      When I was the Honolulu anchor of the three-city telecast of "Asia Now," shown weekly in 166 PBS markets in the United States, I'd introduce reports on places and people in Myanmar, Vanuatu, Rapa Nui and other farflung places in Asia and the Pacific. Some names, I couldn't guess how to say.

     That was a cue for one of the top producers on the program, Chris Conybeare, to get on the phone and call all over the world to get the correct pronunciation from trusted sources.

     Today--similar problem, different solution.

     For "Long Story Short" on PBS Hawaii, I needed to say "Joseph de Veuster," the given name of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who served leprosy patients in Kalaupapa, Molokai. I'd heard the name pronounced several ways and wasn't sure that any of them was correct.

      I mentioned this to "Long Story Short's" executive producer,  Robert Pennybacker, and he got back to me right away--with an online link.

       Here it is: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/joseph+de+veuster

       Go ahead and listen to the audio. It's not what local news anchors are saying. The voice says:  Zho-SEF dih veh-STAIR.  So easy when you know the language!

Behind the Scenes at "Antiques Roadshow"

  Remember the amazing things that Hawaii  folks brought in, when the PBS show "Antiques Roadshow" shot on location in Honolulu in 2006?

  The venerable milo bowl with exquisitely thin wood walls? The Joseph Nawahi landscape that represented the first Western-style painting by a native Hawaiian?

  "Antiques Roadshow" remains very popular among PBS Hawaii viewers. It's an entertaining way to absorb history and see what people have in their homes!

   Thought you might be interested in this detailed account of what it's like behind the scenes of the show:

www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an-inside-look-at-antiques-roadshow-a-collectors-weekly-special-report/

    This article may leave you wanting to see the show right away. It won't be airing this Monday (Sept. 28, 2009) so that we may bring you Ken Burns' "The National Parks; America's Best Idea." Normally you can see "Antiques Roadshow," uninterrupted by commercials, on Mondays at 8 pm.

A Sprawling National Parks Film

When you see that quite a few of your favorite, regularly scheduled primetime programs on PBS Hawaii are absent from our schedule in the coming week, there’d better be a good reason.

 And there is a mighty good reason.

The long-awaited new Ken Burns film: “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” is 12-1/2 hours long and will sprawl over the next six nights of television on PBS Hawaii. Even PBS’ Friday night public-affairs shows such as WASHINGTON WEEK, NOW, AND BILL MOYERS JOURNAL are on hiatus for this.

This film, telling a quintessentially American story about keeping the best of our nation’s lands for the enjoyment of everyone, debuts at 7 pm tomorrow (Sun.,Sept. 27, 2009) and continues Monday through Friday (Sept. 28-Oct. 2, 2009) starting at 8 pm.

In TV lingo, this is a “double pump” event, meaning each episode will run twice the same night, in order to give more people an opportunity to see the film in its debut run.

It’s no surprise that the film, six years in the making, is visually stunning and diverse. You’ll see Hawaii’s volcanoes, Florida’s swamplands, Arizona’s desert, Montana’s glaciers and more.

What you may not expect is the emotional pull of the heroic individual struggles to preserve these wild lands for the people. Local pressure to commercialize was often intense.

You’ll also hear about a mighty struggle that became a lost cause. The Hetch Hetchy Valley in California is said to have rivaled Yosemite in beauty. However, San Francisco prevailed in flooding the valley for use as a dam.

And it's remarkable that Arizona’s Grand Canyon, one of our most breathtaking wildernesses, went largely unnoticed  for a long time before it came to national prominence. Arizona State University Prof. Stephen Pyne said the canyon lands were once considered “not as a presence so much as an absence, as a place to be avoided. And so it was.”

www.azcentral.com/travel/features/articles/2009/09/23/20090923/kenburns0927.html

Here and there, you’ll see flashes of footage from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala Park. The most detailed local treatment comes in Part 3, “The Empire of Grandeur (1915-1919),” airing on Tuesday (Sept. 29, 2009) at 8 and 10 pm. The film is both sweeping and intimate.

We hope you enjoy this six-evening look at the purple mountains’ majesty that’s set aside, not for royalty or the uber-rich--but for the American people.

You’ll also be seeing, airing at different times of PBS Hawaii's broadcast day, one-minute video stories about National Park lands in the Pacific. These are funded by private, nonprofit friends’ groups supporting the National Park Service, to give added dimension to Ken Burns’ film.

We commissioned Honolulu’s Jeff DePonte to produce the far-flung stories.

Bob Sevey's Widow, Rosalie

    Seven months after retired KGMB news anchor Bob Sevey died of complications from cancer, his widow Rosalie has passed away in Washington State.

   Bob's younger son Dave has told Hawaii friends that his mother died of Alzheimer's Disease.

   The Seveys leave two sons, Dave and Michael.

   I last saw Rosalie in 2007 in a visit to the Sevey home in a lakeside retirement community in Lacey, Washington.  (I'd met Bob when I was an eighth-grader representing Honolulu in the Hawaii State Spelling Bee, televised live from Farrington High. Later, I would be one of the first on-air women that Bob hired in the KGMB newsroom--following Bambi Weil--now Judge Hifo, Linda Coble and Carolyn Tanaka.)

    Sitting in the living room watching television, Rosalie smiled but no longer recognized me.  Sevey kissed her hair and she grinned again and chuckled. I remember thinking how well-cared for she looked--in a bright and cheerful turtleneck shirt, her hair coiffed, cozy in her armchair. On a lamp next to her chair, a lei was draped. It was a gift from former KGMB reporter Elisa Yadao and her husband Stephen Jones which had been hand-carried on a visit by Linda Coble and Kirk Matthews.

     When Rosalie was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Bob restructured the couple's life to give her the best care possible.  Eventually they would live with 24-hour nursing care, with workers arriving in three shifts, and get around together in a van equipped to handle Rosalie's wheelchair.

     The disease progressed. And Bob developed chemo-resistant, inoperable cancer. He kept up his spirits and kept a keen look-out for his wife of many years. When Bob died last February, there is no indication that Rosalie knew it. A blessing, some said.

      My condolences to the couple's sons, Michael and David, who left Hawaii after graduation from 'Iolani School, and Bob's sister and confidante Sandi. 

 

The Vegas Rule Applies to this Meeting

      What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.

       And what happens in the Honolulu room where Weinberg Fellows meet stays in the room.

       The Fellows, a dozen nonprofit executive directors from throughout the state, are encouraged to build trust in each other and share challenges and brainstorm solutions. The program is funded by the Weinberg Foundation and run by Holly Henderson.

       It's not divulging a secret to say that nonprofit directors, especially those who are heavily dependent on government or institutional funding, are under a terrible strain. (Individual donors tend to hold up better.)

       The average day of one of these nonprofit leaders is full enough to fill two days. That's not counting the take-home worry. 

       Holly Henderson acknowledges the high workload and has been known to deadpan, "You have to relax. It's not a do-able job."

        Her role is to give these directors access to more resources and relationships, and open the doors to new possibilities in community-building.

        The Weinberg Foundation has been quietly funding Fellows groups since 1992. A strategic and cumulative wise investment, especially considering the monster of an economic challenge facing our nonprofits today.

My fellow Fellows in Learning New Things

    I'm one of this year's Weinberg Fellows in Hawaii. We're executive directors of nonprofit organizations, prying ourselves away from our workloads to learn new skills and strategies. There are a dozen of us in the islands, under the tutelage of the smart and funny Holly Henderson who brings in a host of speakers who also know their stuff.

    My PBS Hawaii Board Chair, Robbie Alm, who teaches a graduate-level course in leadership at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was the lead-off speaker at the last session. His topic: "An Economic Crisis is a Terrible Opportunity to Waste. " His very first piece of advice was reminiscent of those airline announcements telling you that in case of emergency, you should put on your own oxygen mask before you help children with theirs. In other words, you have to keep yourself strong before you can be strong for others.  It may sound basic, but it's profound advice, especially for people like nonprofit leaders who tend to consider their own needs last.

     Robbie looked out at the faces in the group and he could tell the strain of some of the  directors who are responding to increased community needs, with less money and fewer staffers.

     It's tough to get away from pressing concerns at the office--but the Weinberg Fellows program, funded by the Weinberg Foundation, is more than worth the time. It's teaching me how to approach my job with fewer assumptions, different questions, more access to resources, and a  lightness of heart.

     Tomorrow, Friday and Saturday, I'll be in a conference room with my fellow Fellows, as Holly takes us to places in nonprofit management that we've never been. The idea is to reduce job burn-out and  improve nonprofit leadership and stewardship in Hawaii, one Fellow at a time.  

Pulitzer-Winning Poet W.S. Merwin in the House!

  As I sat down to talk in our PBS Hawaii TV studio with  poet W.S. Merwin, I admitted feeling daunted at the thought of talking poetry with a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

  

"Why?" Merwin asked, as if it were the most natural and easy thing to do.

    As it turned out, it was very easy to talk with him, and the conversation was free-flowing.

     Born in NYC and raised in New Jersey, Merwin has made his home in rural Maui since the 1970s. He loves gardening, restoring land that was abused. And his writing has been prolific. Just this year he was awarded his second Pulitzer, for a poetry collection, "The Shadow of Sirius,"  that includes poems about his late black dog, blind and fearless.  Merwin also has been awarded many of the other major honors one can win in the poetry world.

  www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/123   

     He says his poetry is always a happy accident.  He listens to the words in his head, adds and subtracts and massages until he doesn't feel he can do more to the verses, and he's done. He says he can't even tell whether his wife Paula will like his latest.

     We  had to stop the taping for a moment because of a technical problem. "How's this going?" he asked me.  I was surprised that he asked,  because the crew and I were riveted.  

      He mentioned a few poets he's known, including Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot , but he could have dropped scores of names. He was good friends with Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. He witnessed their disintegrating marriage and remained close to Hughes after Plath's suicide.

     Merwin, working every day among the endangered palms in his garden that he planted as seeds, believes that mankind is working hard to destroy the world. He says the human race is driving at full speed, pressing on the gas pedal and aiming at a massive wall.  It's an apocalytpic view and it co-exists with his sense that everyday acts of kindness and empathy are important.

    I'll let you know when "Long Story Short," featuring W.S. Merwin, will appear on PBS Hawaii.

Damien Week on PBS Hawaii

PBS Hawaii - Damien Week Video

We'll be seeing  TV news clips and some news specials with the approach of Father Damien's canonization in Rome. But no  major commercial TV station can do what our public television station is doing the week that  the priest  who spiritually and physically embraced patients with leprosy or Hansen's Disease at Kalaupapa, Molokai, is recognized as a saint.

For five evenings, PBS Hawaii is running original locally produced programs about Damien, life for remaining patients in the isolated Molokai settlement and the future of Kalaupapa--all in prime time, without commercial interruption, starting October 11, 2009.

Affiliates of TV commercial networks have contractual obligations and aren't able to carve out valuable television time in this way. PBS is a national alliance of individual stations of common purpose serving local populations.

We're clearing the way for Damien, to be responsive to our local communities. It'll be a big week for Hawaii--how often is one of our historical figures sainted?--and public interest will be high. The event also highlights the past, present and future of Hawaii's experience with a once-dreaded disease now treatable in office visits. Many of our island families can tell stories of a loved one who was banished to Kalaupapa. ("My great-great-grandfather disappeared," is how a friend puts it.)

Another cool thing about these original local programs--a single donor, Honolulu resident Dr. Lawrence K.W. Tseu, has underwritten much of the cost of producing and presenting them.  He sees this as a gift to the public and as a way of honoring the memory of his late wife.

And because we're a nonprofit organization, it's  a tax-deductible contribution.

Our team at PBS Hawaii is  thankful to Dr. Tseu  for caring and for the opportunity provided by viewer-supported public television  to present stories that matter.